I there are some major issue which set the Crownies apart from any major classic faction... mainly the Crownies are the only human faction currently available, whereas all of the classic factions had to compete with other factions. Secondly, every current Castle set comes with a conflict of some sort, so every set (for a long time) was bound to come with 1 to 2 Crownies. In the old days we would get sets which were exclusively one faction or the other. True not all current year sets come with a Crowny, but most still do. Think of the days of Classic (when many of us were kids) if every set had at least two factions in it, our collections would be much larger. Lego is somewhat smart in that regard because when I was a kid I would buy multiples of some Crusader sets (because that was my faction) but not buy some sets that didnt include them. With the current marketing strategy, a kid would be hard pressed to not want all of the sets. Now if only we could get another human faction.

Classic factions were like old continental Europe; many realms. The Crownies are a fantasy Dark Ages product, and in many of those you have single kingdoms of focus beset by many trials. These guys are being overrun by death and chaos. Thus the humans in their desperation have united and put aside their petty differences. For now...

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be. -Willy Wonka, 1971-

Count Blacktron wrote:Classic factions were like old continental Europe; many realms. The Crownies are a fantasy Dark Ages product, and in many of those you have single kingdoms of focus beset by many trials. These guys are being overrun by death and chaos. Thus the humans in their desperation have united and put aside their petty differences. For now...

Unfortunately the real reason behind there being only one human faction is as follows:

Lego tries to avoid destinctively evil sides being impersonated as human characters. They can't avoid it with the City theme, nor with certain licenced themes. But they can and do so with most other themes: There are extraterrestian Aliens in the current and recent Space themes, some "evil" beasts in the late Aquanauts theme, some rock monsters in the Powerminers theme, and skeletons and orcs/trolls in the Castle theme. Even the evil opponents in the Agents theme are not all human, some are even partial robotic.

Why? Because those antagonists are meant to be fought against, are meant to be annihilated, if possible. To sum it up: They are meant to be killed. But children are supposed to learn that no human being must be killed. So Lego simply replaces human evildoers with non-human ones. These may be killed at will.

ByeJojo

This is just the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.Winston Churchill

Count Blacktron wrote:Classic factions were like old continental Europe; many realms. The Crownies are a fantasy Dark Ages product, and in many of those you have single kingdoms of focus beset by many trials. These guys are being overrun by death and chaos. Thus the humans in their desperation have united and put aside their petty differences. For now...

Unfortunately the real reason behind there being only one human faction is as follows:

Lego tries to avoid destinctively evil sides being impersonated as human characters. They can't avoid it with the City theme, nor with certain licenced themes. But they can and do so with most other themes: There are extraterrestian Aliens in the current and recent Space themes, some "evil" beasts in the late Aquanauts theme, some rock monsters in the Powerminers theme, and skeletons and orcs/trolls in the Castle theme. Even the evil opponents in the Agents theme are not all human, some are even partial robotic.

Why? Because those antagonists are meant to be fought against, are meant to be annihilated, if possible. To sum it up: They are meant to be killed. But children are supposed to learn that no human being must be killed. So Lego simply replaces human evildoers with non-human ones. These may be killed at will.

ByeJojo

I like your take on the whole Crownie thing Jojo. From my childhood, I have but a few of the classic castle Lego minifigs remaining. I have made up for it......I have about 300 Crownies.

Jojo wrote:Hello!Unfortunately the real reason behind there being only one human faction is as follows:

Lego tries to avoid destinctively evil sides being impersonated as human characters. They can't avoid it with the City theme, nor with certain licenced themes. But they can and do so with most other themes: There are extraterrestian Aliens in the current and recent Space themes, some "evil" beasts in the late Aquanauts theme, some rock monsters in the Powerminers theme, and skeletons and orcs/trolls in the Castle theme. Even the evil opponents in the Agents theme are not all human, some are even partial robotic.

Why? Because those antagonists are meant to be fought against, are meant to be annihilated, if possible. To sum it up: They are meant to be killed. But children are supposed to learn that no human being must be killed. So Lego simply replaces human evildoers with non-human ones. These may be killed at will.

ByeJojo

If that's true, it's only been true for a few years. In castle as recent as KKII, as far as I can tell Lord Vladek and his henchmen are all human. I'd be more inclined to think that since Lego has done sooo many human vs. human themes, they purposely have gone a human vs. non-human (whether Trolls or aliens, etc) route for a change.

Count Blacktron wrote:Classic factions were like old continental Europe; many realms. The Crownies are a fantasy Dark Ages product, and in many of those you have single kingdoms of focus beset by many trials. These guys are being overrun by death and chaos. Thus the humans in their desperation have united and put aside their petty differences. For now...

I think this makes more sense. However, I think there is room for more human factions (good or evil) in a fantasty theme. For a LOTR comparison, you had Gondor and Rohan on the "good side", and you at least two human factions fighting against them along side the Orcs and such (the "evil side"), the Easterlings and the Haradrim (the ones with the huge war "Oliphaunts"). But since this isn't a LOTR theme, who knows what Lego might do.

I don't think any explanation makes sense unless it is a marketing one. Lego never claimed that current Castle Lego was an extension of any previous castle line, therefore the grand unified theory of faction assimilation makes a great story line, but is not rooted in a TLC based concept. I think it comes down to there not being a real marketing need for another human faction, at least not with most kids. In the great scheme of things, there are plenty of factions right now a for a kid and their best friends to have their own faction and still have a decent battle. I happen to dislike the skellies (my daughter is somewhat scared of them), the dwarves are neat for what they are, the trolls are cool (I dont like them as a primary faction, but I am not the entire Lego market), the Crownies are great but I think its time to move beyond them and introduce a new more barbaric (note: this doesnt mean evil, just more like the Franks or Visi/Ostro Goths, since the Viking thing has already been done) faction.

We are getting closer to the truth with marketing. The reason for the non-human factions is solely a marketing decision and we better get used to the idea.

Several higher ups at TLG told me directly at brickworld, obvious evil factions (skellies, trolls) are a much more popular with the focus groups of children than two human factions where it is harder to figure out who is on which side. The results were so overwhelming that I would not recommend hoping for 2 human factions in the same set any time soon. I suppose the humans could be allied against another evil faction, but I would expect fantasy elements in the castle theme for a long time to come.

Even if castle takes a break as many of us think it is going to, when it returns I would expect continued evil fantasy counterparts to a human faction of good guys. I just hope they come out with a new human faction as the crownies have been done enough.

Not sure, a handful. Maybe like 20-30, but I don't usually keep my minifig denominations together, I mix and match to create new soldiers. As for the Crownie chainmail hauberk torso, I have 60+, being that I just created a unit of mailed spear sergeants.